obiwan, you're clearly wrong about freedom of speech. "Saying whatever you want but with the recognition that there may be legal consequences" is true in EVERY country, even the most oppressive regime in history -- that's because, as a matter of physiology, humans can say whatever they want. If that's what freedom of speech meant, it would be a truly meaningless concept.

No, it very plainly means that you can say whatever you want and NOT face legal consequences, as has been affirmed in many Supreme Court cases. You're quite right, of course, that there are limitations on free speech, but they're extremely few. The important thing to realize, anyway, is that they ARE limitations on free speech, and are explicitly recognized as such, so no redefinition of what free speech IS is required for them. The fact that you can't yell "fire" in a movie theater does not mean free speech is something other than a right to say "fire" without legal consequences; it just means that in that case, free speech doesn't exist.

But it does exist generally. You're certainly allowed to say something that others will find offensive and appalling, for example. Unlike your "my hand / your face" example, the places where the law has recognized that speech causes direct enough harm to somebody to be curtailed are extremely few. Even WBC is protected, for example.

As for your response -- OK, so you think it's unconstitutional. Well, you're right, enacting the ten commandments would be unconstitutional, but not for the reasons you think. It's because some of the ten commandments have religious _content_. You can't force somebody to serve or not serve a particular god because that's establishing a religion, which is prohibited.

However, there is nothing unconstitutional about passing a law that is not explicitly religious for religious reasons. As has already been pointed out, various anti-slavery laws were passed under such conditions. There is no question that they were constitutional, irrespective of the reasons they were passed or the institutions supporting them.

It's not exactly "something being enforced as law because it's in the Bible." It's enforced as law, of course, because it's law. But the motivations of many of those who pass it as law may well be what's in the Bible, and there is nothing unconstitutional about that.

"It is a bad idea, and for the reason that #2 can very easily and quickly become #1."

What does this even mean? #1 and #2 referred to YOUR rationales for opposing this kind of law. How can your rationale somehow change?

In any case, let's just underscore the main point: there is nothing unconstitutional about supporting a non-religious law for religious reasons, or campaigning for it with religion-tied money. (By non-religious law, I mean any law that does not explicitly deal with religion).

"I don't think Marx was an anti-semite just anti-religious. Marx's idea of equality is not reprehensible - what is wrong with saying 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need'?"

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Incidentally, that's NOT a Shakespeare quote, as many believe...a +1 to the first who can identify the true author of that quote without a search engine. ;)

Anyway--

Well, I'm a Democrat, Socrates--well, to everyone but Putin I count as a Democrat, I'm registered and everything, but I'm not a hard-line party fanatic and I dare to vote according to the candidate and issue rather than strictly Red vs. Blue, so in Putin's eyes I don't cont, even though in the register of the Democratic Party, I do, but I digress--so I certainly don't have a problem with helping people or giving them a helping hand or a hand up...

And that's a key distinction, a hand up, NOT a hand out.

To another end, I simply don't agree with that ideal--

I agree with "each according to merit, with the opportunity for external help."

If you are genuinely excellent and successful in a field, you should get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
If you are lesser, you are lesser, and you will probably be paid lesser.
There is no shame in that.
HOWEVER, you SHOULD endeavor to move up the ladder, and...
The GOVERNMENT, I would argue, should try and give you a bit of a hand up.

I like sports, so my analogy here is the draft for pro sports:

If you are a great team, you are treated as such.
You make more money than bad teams in proceeds, you go to the playoffs, etc.
If you are a lesser team, you are treated as such.
You don't get the nationally-televised games, or as much money, or recognition, etc.
This seems pretty fair, yes?
The better you run a team and play on a team, ie, the better the merits of a team, the better the better the return?
BUT...
There is the Draft at the beginning of each season.
The worst teams get to draft first; this allows them a HAND UP, and NOT a hand out.
They get a hand up in getting to pick players first, as they need better players the most...
BUT they are not being handed out cash by the league or a guarantee of wins.
So the league still operates "according to merit," not "according to need," EXCEPT in the Draft, and that's not lessening a team's work or handing them out wins and cash, just giving them a hand up in allowing them the opportunity to better themselves.

THAT is my idea of government's role, in a very, very simple analogy that isn't as complex as is needed for this, but still.

So I support government programs and welfare (though I believe there should be drug testing) and social security and so on and so forth...

I DON'T agree with a redistribution of wealth, or just automatically giving out wealth and taking away from those who have done well; those who have done well should be taxed more in my opinion (here comes the firestorm from not only Putin but the Right now as well!) but not at all to the lengths and the malicious and mean-spirited extent that Marx endorses, and NEVER in a redistribution manner.

Again, equality of opportunity is what we all have a right to, NOT equality of status or OUTCOME.

I believe the government should strive to help those who need help in having an opportunity to succeed, I DO NOT believe that they should mandate their outcome and succeed for them, and I disagree that this is what well-executed social programs that many Republicans wish to cut, but again, I'm off topic and have now angered everyone.

;)

"Guess we wont disagree but Marx was a clever person that promoted a more equal world in my mind."

I again advocate for equality of opportunity, not of status and outcome.

Equality, also, does not always necessitate "better," and to explain that--

Again, imagine sports.
Great teams make a great league.
Great teams need money to maintain teams, and they earn their wins.
But a great league is ALSO made but upward mobility...
After all, what's more exciting than an old doormat team becoming an underdog winner?
For that mobility upward, new talent is needed for the poorer teams.
Hence the Draft.
BUT, this still results in an UNEQUAL league, necessarily.
Teams will still be better or worse than one another, they just change those roles.
The inequality and the opportunity to move up the ladder is what makes an exciting league.

If you just give everyone the same amount of wins and losses, or redistribute the "wealth of talent," as it were, to reshuffle the players on teams to make them all roughly equal in quality, you suffer a quality drop--you no longer have those great teams with stars that drew big crowds and fans and made the league fun.

You may argue "If they're all equal, everyone has a chance, and that's exciting," but even so, again, it's a bunch of necessarily-mediocre teams playing...

And when all teams are forced into the same, equal level, being champion doesn't mean as much--you're not better than the other teams, not by a great margin, anyway.

So you need teams constantly moving up and down the talent ladder; those teams up the ladder you leave be, they're doing fine, and those down the ladder you help by giving them an equalized opportunity to acquire a "wealth of talent" via the Draft, you DO NOT simply take star players from other top squads and place them on the weaker teams.

THAT is unfair, and unjust.

"There is nothing wrong with 'extremism' and extremism is really only extreme in relative terms. And even if there was the two aren't equal - an extremely devout buddhist is not as bad as an extremely devout Nazi (trying to pick an obvious one for agreement)."

I can't agree--

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Sociology/Religion/?view=usa&ci=9780195394832

A devout, extremist Buddhist might kill the same as a Nazi, as both are extremists, to quote:

"Buddhist soldiers in sixth century China were given the illustrious status of Bodhisattva after killing their adversaries. In seventeenth century Tibet, the Fifth Dalai Lama endorsed a Mongol ruler's killing of his rivals. And in modern-day Thailand, Buddhist soldiers carry out their duties undercover, as fully ordained monks armed with guns."

Extremism leads to tragedy and destruction, nearly without exception.

@semck:

"there is nothing unconstitutional about supporting a non-religious law for religious reasons, or campaigning for it with religion-tied money. (By non-religious law, I mean any law that does not explicitly deal with religion)."

But the case I gave--attempting to have the 10 Commandments be localized, enforceable law for a town in Alabama, I believe--is NOT a non-religious law.

School prayer--a religious law, not non-religious law.

Gay marriage--making a law based off of religious law, not non-religious law.

THESE are (for starters) what I am arguing against...

hand outs are fine! and no it's not fair, is it fair that because i was born with more intelligence than your average joe that i should earn more and have a better standard of living? meritocracies have nothing fair about them. and they can't even exist beyond conjectures. I disagree that all extremism is as bad, someone that is an extremist when it comes to being nice to someone is not as bad as an someone that is an extremist at being mean? And the sports team analogy does not fit, someone's life is more important than a sports team AND money does not equate to such a fundamental part of a person - as a star player does a team. Oh and Democrats aren't so left that it means I have to say woo.
remember my point on lenin ending pogroms too!

"But the case I gave--attempting to have the 10 Commandments be localized, enforceable law for a town in Alabama, I believe--is NOT a non-religious law."

Yes, and I said so explicitly. You did read my post, right?

"School prayer--a religious law, not non-religious law."

Correct.

"Gay marriage--making a law based off of religious law, not non-religious law."

You're wrong on this one. The law ITSELF here is not religious -- it doesn't involve prayer, worship, religious customs, anything. Having or not having gay marriage is a secular question. There is nothing whatsoever unconstitutional about choosing your position on the question for religious reasons, or using religious language to argue for a particular point of view.

Nothing.

@obi - Please define for me "White Christian Community" even just in so far as their beliefs... I guarantee you can't (well, *you* could, but you would be wrong) because their is no signle set of faiths. You have Catholic and Baptists and Lutheran and Methodist and Nazarene and Episcopal and Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and... All of whom claim Christianity and all of whom have a heavy white population and, most importantly, all of whom have a distinctly different set of beliefs even unto the religious morality of various concepts like gays and women and race.

@Obi - I assume you know the 10 commandments and know that hay marriage and school prayer aren't in them, right? And depending on how the law is written. A law that doesn't allow a school to forbid a private prayer group is completely constitutional as those students have a right to have a prayer group during their free time for instance. Where as a law that requires prayer time at the beginning of each day and requires student participation would be unconstitutional. Tweak that to a law that requires a quiet period for reflection that could be used to perform any quiet religious activity or just to sit quietly should the child prefer would be constitutional but would be supported by many religious groups: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, even New Age and Wiccan.

OK, so let's review the commandments. 1&2 - obviously religious and obviously unconstitutional except for a subset of two that can be restricted as offensive speech in proximity to schools and parks/playgrounds has been upheld as constitutional.

3 - to force an individual to "keep the sabbath" would be unconstitutional, but labor laws do prevent employers from working someone every day of every week, pretty much guaranteeing everyone gets at least one day out fo the week off, but ti may or may not be the "sabbath" and what they do with it is their choice.

3 - not constitutional and not practical so not an issue

5-8 - already laws in some form or another. Killing, stealing, lying under oath (bearing false witness means lying about your beighbor's actions in an attempt to destroy his reputation so this includes libel, slander, and lying under oath or to the police. Adultery is also a crime in most states. It is a civil crime, but the adulterous party int he marriage usually loses most of the estate as a result unless other circumstances like certain pre-nups exists, and the wronged spouse can sue the partner in the affair for damages to her happy home life, often winning. Stealing and killing are obvious).

9 & 10 - thought crimes so won't ever be made illegal or enforced unless it involves things like voyerism (coveting thy neighbor's wife) which is more than just dreaming about him or her naked, but active action in an effort to see him or her naked.

The only way Obi can call Marx an antisemite is if hes illiterate, which Im convinced he is.

Marx would have embraced every athiest semite. He wasn't against a race or region fo people, but against all religion and the way it repressed the people at the time (and still does to many today, including certain sects of Christianity).

Plus One to Semck for this simple yet profound truth: "There is nothing whatsoever unconstitutional about choosing your position on the question for religious reasons, or using religious language to argue for a particular point of view.

Nothing."

There is nothing unconstiutional about taxing churches or making sure they follow basic labor law.

Hey, Putin and I agree! I don't think any "charity" should be tax exempt unless they can show that no one draws a salary and it is run completely by volunteers with all the money going to the causes it supports. Churches and charities generally make money. That said, there are certain positions (like pastor/priest) whose full time job it is to tend their "flock", and their are expenditures for property maintenance and electric bills. But if the churches coffers show an increase year after year, that increase should be taxed. And if a charity has tons of employees drawing salaries doing the same thing they would do in the for profit world, the charity should be taxed.

@ obi

Forgive me if I'm not following you but this sounds an awful lot like you’re accusing “the White Christian Community” for being disingenuous in praising Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Before the White Christian Community needed his namesake, they demonized him as a Communist." Obiwanobiwan

When I pointed out that you were stereotyping White Christians, apparently in an attempt to make them seem more concerned about our own image than people’s rights, you immediately tried to muddy the water. Is it all White Christians, a significant group of White Christians, of a theoretical “thread” within some White Christian power structure that has behaved in this way toward Dr. King?

If it’s all of us then what evidence to you have to back up this outrageous claim?

If it’s a significant group, then why are you being imprecise and calling that group the “White Christian Community”?

If it is some theoretical “thread” then please explain what that even means. I could easily point to theoretical “threads” that tie modern atheists to the Jacobins, but it would do no good other than to inflame atheists and really prove nothing.

Need I remind you that the Abolitionist Movement in the United States was largely populated by White Christians or that the first protest against slavery in the New World it was initiated in 1688 within the Quakers ( a White Christian community) with the proposal of the Germantown Petition? This transcript (http://www.yale.edu/glc/aces/germantown.htm) shows they were drawing upon Christianity to draft the letter.

So again, which group and generation of White Christian Community are we talking about? There is no monolithic “White Christian Community”. Please be specific.

Sorry obi-dork. The U ASS of A folks are a bunch of Bible thumpers of various stripes.

Also, you dweebs are MELTING POT.

We are mosaic.

Also, and apropos of nothing except the pleasure of rubbing your face in shit, it's legal for women to walk around topless in Canada, and we're Christian too.

"it's legal for women to walk around topless in Canada"

Does this strike anyone else as odd? I mean it gets really cold in Canada.

OK, here I go again around the horn once more...

@Socrates:

"hand outs are fine!"

Between that and your praising Marx, sounds like you will get along better with Putin than I...

No. No they are not. A hand up allows for and encourages social mobility, a hand out allows for people to stay in the same state of ignorance and merely pays them for that ignorance rather than actually actively aiding as well as encouraging them to get a job.

There is a balance--and I know Putin is in love with the extremists and has advocated that's the better way, and you agree, I disagree--between "up by your bootstraps" Dickensian cruelty and callousness (dare I add conservatism to that list of c's and anger half the people here?) and robbing me of my hard work to pay for someone else.

The old saying:
Catch a man to fish, he eats for a day,
Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime?

I say catch the man a few fish WHILE he's learning to fish for himself, and he'll be well-fed and a better fisherman all his life.

"and no it's not fair, is it fair that because i was born with more intelligence than your average joe that i should earn more and have a better standard of living?"

Rather odd of yourself to proclaim yourself intelligent, but if you've got it, flaunt it, I suppose...my answer?

Yes.
Yes, that IS fair.
If you are legitimately smarter and more trained and capable than the average joe,
If you are more intellectually excellent and can benefit society more than the average joe,
YES, you SHOULD be paid more--decidedly more.

The average joe is just that--average. He may be a great person, and he may even come to excel, but as long as he's average...from just the objective view of a government...he's average, he's interchangeable, he's socially replaceable.

Workers come and go, but it's the leaders and their groups that are more valuable starters...

That being said, Workers AS A UNION are IRREPLACEABLE, and HIGHLY valuable when taken altogether, so there's a balance struck again--

I favor the elites over the workers in terms of pay, BUT I say that workers must be allowed their unions and good, strong unions at that, and be able to negotiate their fees fairy, as after all, one average joe is replaceable, but an entire workforce worth of them, not so much.

@semck:

"Having or not having gay marriage is a secular question."

I'd argue that while that's technically correct, nevertheless it IS still a case of someone having rights denied due to a religious bias, and I don't even mean a personal religious bias here--we, again, are not supposed to have an official religion, and yet we would deny gays who pay taxes (taxes that incidentally the Churches that deny them this right do NOT pay, so from a purely philosophical point I'd wonder how just that can possibly be, a non-tax paying organization denying rights to taxpayers, but I digress) purely on the basis of a select religious scripture.

There really is no other reason to deny them that right, that IS why they're being denied...

And I'd argue that shows favoritism towards a religious sect (not allowed) and that it is far from secular in practice, even if the law itself is secularly-written.

If the point is to be raised "they are free Churches, they have the right to refuse the right to marry to whomever they wish," I would agree...

BUT, as marriage is a state-recognized thing, and has tangible effects on a person's tax status and hospital allowances as a significant other/next of kin and so on, I'd argue that to use a purely religious rationale (if you disagree and feel there is a purely secular rationale for not allowing gays to marry, please enlighten me as to what that might possibly be) from a select religion denies rights based on that religion's code, infringes upon freedoms and rights of others because of that code, and shows favoritism towards that religion, which is NOT something to be condoned.

@Draugnar:

"Please define for me "White Christian Community" even just in so far as their beliefs... I guarantee you can't (well, *you* could, but you would be wrong) because their is no signle set of faiths. You have Catholic and Baptists and Lutheran and Methodist and Nazarene and Episcopal and Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and... All of whom claim Christianity and all of whom have a heavy white population and, most importantly, all of whom have a distinctly different set of beliefs even unto the religious morality of various concepts like gays and women and race."

You've really already shown how fragmented that group is, and I or anyone else would be foolish to dispute that.

I feel like perhaps my term here isn't being taken quite the way I intended it to...

I'm not saying there's an actual, tangible White Christian Community, a WCC, if you will, and you can sign up and get T-shirts and everything, you know, ones that have an arrow and the words "I'm With Jesus...ALL THE TIME...EVEN WHEN WE'RE SLEEPING..."

;)

It sounds like a broad catch-all--and it is, that's how I meant it.

I really didn't construct an idea of it with the intention of using it as a tangible-entity term, if you will, but merely as a sort of catch-all to refer to several VERY DIFFERENT (as you pointed out) groups that once spurned MLK and demonized him as a communist and now tout him on the principles of his being a Christian...

All of which had in common the characteristics of being White and Christian.

I AGREE, that's a broad, broad group--I intended it to be a broad catch-all sort of statement, of course there is no "White Christian Community" Ideology...

If there is, it's probably 1. Feud with one another as much as possible, 2. Inspire the best classical music ever for hundreds of years and then inspire Nickelback and Godsmack and ruin everything, and 3. Catch football on Sundays after church.

:)

So again--it was a catch-all, and that's all, just a way to keep me from saying White Catholics/Protestants/Baptists/Mormons/Methodists/Presbyterians/Everything Else.

Really, the term "Christian" ITSELF is a catch-all, Draug, and you never seem to have a problem using it instead of Catholics/Protestants/Baptists/Mormons/Methodists/Presbyterians/Everything Else...

"I assume you know the 10 commandments and know that hay marriage and school prayer aren't in them, right?"

...Yes...I wasn't arguing against *gay marriage and school prayer while citing them as part of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments were part of a different argument group altogether...

"And depending on how the law is written. A law that doesn't allow a school to forbid a private prayer group is completely constitutional as those students have a right to have a prayer group during their free time for instance."

Well, I'm referring of and thinking about the mass, school-wide, everyone-joins-in-together-in-class school prayers of yore, as it were...

I'd STILL be iffy on your idea (on a legal basis, but on an entirely different one, not because such a thing might be unconstitutional--it sounds like it'd be fine--but rather because it's just setting itself up for a lawsuit or a school beating or incident so very badly...I'm not even saying the prayer kids would be the antagonists in such a fight, they may be the victims, I'm just saying that either way it sounds like a superintendent's nightmare and a lawyer's wet dream, so I personally wouldn't vote for or wish for such a thing, but as far as the sheer legality of THAT goes, yes, it'd probably fly...we had a "Christian Club" in my old school...and that had it's own sort of friction--hence my severe hesitancy from that vantage point--but sure, such a Club would be legal, and if they wanted to open their meetings with a prayer, as long as it wasn't in pubic and was, as you say, private, that sounds like it could be fine.)

In reference to your review of the Commandments:

I'd say they're ALL religious, being part of a deeply religious code in a deeply religious text.

As you point out, 1-4 are not (for the most part) constitutional or practical...

5-8 we already have laws for (I'd wonder how #5 is exactly set into law...I know the list varies, I always associate 5 with "Honor thy Father and Thy Mother," though I know other religious sects have that as #4, so I suppose I'd ask first if that's what you mean by #4--and yet ANOTHER problem with having religion fuse with law...there are different versions of the same religious codes!--and if you mean the same #5 as I do...what law is there that forces me to honor my father? He was Jewish and converted to Christianity--much to the partial chagrin of the rest of our until-then-entirely-Jewish-background family stretching back generations, I mean, he wasn't ostracized or anything, you couldn't if you tried, he's a weight-lifting ex-California Highway Patrol cop, but still--and I'm an Atheist Jew, so we already butted heads a lot, as sons and fathers are want to do, but now we definitely clash more and just generally stay silent if we can...but when we do talk, yeah, he and I have it out, he has it out with his father...that's not honoring your father, so...???)

Anyway, as I was saying before that LONG digression on #5, if we have laws for 5-8 already, why do we need them/why would we even broach the subject of ever infusing them in any way?

9 and 10 you also say won't be made into crimes...so I ask the above question again--WHY even bother with the Decalogue argument for law?

For that matter, MOST ancient laws worth keeping already have a (far better) equivalent today...so why do we need to take any Biblical laws, or any laws from the Torah, Talmud, Koran, Bagavad Gita, you name it...why?

"Marx would have embraced every athiest semite. He wasn't against a race or region fo people, but against all religion and the way it repressed the people at the time (and still does to many today, including certain sects of Christianity)."

He was definitely against religion, I'm not questioning that...

But when he says " "What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money. . . . What is the foundation of the Jew in this world? Practical necessity, private advantage" and then in the same breath also talks about how usurers and bankers and loaners and all of those professions Jews have just been linked to SECULARLY should be eradicated...

Well, if Jew = banker for Marx, and banker = Gotta go...

I really don't want to get hung up on this, because it's not a fight I'll win with Putin on the other sidelines, sure to (prove me wrong, Putin, prove me wrong) already try and provide an explanation to that passage above and call me a fool because hey! name-calling and out-and-out immaturity is the mark of a truly evolved intellectual mind.

But yes, that being just one passage (not even my first choice for a thread-length debate dedicated to this), the question is at least fair to raise with Marx.

Putin might be entirely right, he may have been OK with Jews. I don't think he was.

It's a debatable topic, it has been debated, it surely will still be debated for many decades to come in academia, so, on we go, we're walking, we're walking...

@Crazy Anglican:

"Forgive me if I'm not following you but this sounds an awful lot like you’re accusing “the White Christian Community” for being disingenuous in praising Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

Keeping in mind what I just said about this White Christian Community being a bit of a catch-all...

Yes, I think it's fair to say some groups certainly are a bit disingenuous with their praise of King, and do it for their own ends.

I'm not saying it's the majority, but I think that certainly groups exist that have done this...it's not at all too hard to picture a group (and group) exploiting someone's image for their own gain, is it?

There are bad 'uns in every lot, so even if we took "Christian" as a good term, then certainly you'd agree there are and have been plenty of bad people aligning themselves as being Christian, and as such, people who would be shameless opportunists here?

"Need I remind you that the Abolitionist Movement in the United States was largely populated by White Christians or that the first protest against slavery in the New World it was initiated in 1688 within the Quakers ( a White Christian community) with the proposal of the Germantown Petition? This transcript (http://www.yale.edu/glc/aces/germantown.htm) shows they were drawing upon Christianity to draft the letter."

THIS I will respond to because I've heard this argument so many times it makes me sick...

YES, there was a strong religious Abolitionist movement.
BUT:
1. There were also plenty who were abolitionist on secular, humanist grounds and
2. It's a bit hard for me to pin the medal on a religious group for an admittedly-great action of emancipation when that same group was responsible for the oppression it just ended in the first place.

The slave owners WERE Christian...they DID justify owning slaves for a long, LONG time by pointing to all those passages in the Bible that condone and even lay down laws for the practice of slavery.

So while I take nothing away from the Christian Abolitionists, I DO think it's in turn a bit disingenuous for the Christian to leap up and point to the end of slavery in America as a great accomplishment of Christianity when, in fact, it's creation and maintained state over the centuries was largely because of Christianity and the Bible.

Fixing the mess was great, a wonderful action by wonderful human beings.

But I still can only count it as Christians cleaning up the immoral mess they created themselves.

Actually I am in Calgary now. I was here all last week and will be here all this week and the weather is gorgeous. Oh and the women are, on the whole, incredibly fit and hot. It is actually warmer here than back home in Cincy wherr I went back to this weekend for a day and a half.

Now if only some of those hot women here would take advantage of the topless attire in downtown Calgary.

Oh and, maple... I don't know what city you live in, but the Rockies are an awesome sight to see.

Concerning Christianity and slavery - sorry kid, you need to do some homework and get your own story consistently straight. Evangelical Christianity was always on the forefront of the anti-slavery movement, and it was the nominal Anglicans and enlightenment types like Jefferson who fought abolition. The sophisticated, rationalist, humanist classes of southern society rejected the Great Awakening and the powerful egalitarian forces it unleashed. Sure they used the Bible to justify their actions, but only well after slavery was an integral part of the southern economy. And how very interesting that YOU continue to interpret the Bible in exactly the same way that the slave owners did!

"- sorry kid, you need to do some homework and get your own story consistently straight. Evangelical Christianity was always on the forefront of the anti-slavery movement, and it was the nominal Anglicans and enlightenment types like Jefferson who fought abolition."

O.o

I'm sorry...WHO conquered Africa, captured these slaves, and sold and bought them in the first place?

Those were...CHRISTIANS, by and large, right?

The same way Christians took over the Americas, and (certain Christians) raped, starved, slaughtered, and enslaved the natives there as well?

I don't know what revisionist book you're reading FlemGem, but there's simply no wriggling out of that one--

Christians are the ones behind the Slave Trade and conquering and capturing those slaves in the first place (not to mention forcing their conversion to Christianity.)

"Sure they used the Bible to justify their actions, but only well after slavery was an integral part of the southern economy. And how very interesting that YOU continue to interpret the Bible in exactly the same way that the slave owners did!"

...

I again only have silence--and utter bewilderment.

How DO you read:

Exodus 21:1-4 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Deuteronomy 15:12-18 "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
Exodus 21:7 "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."

And NOT take away that God clearly has no problem with these people keeping slaves, even giving rules on how to keep them, and is OK with it just as long as they're regulated (and in the same legal passages as oxen and chattel, no less, and the women are given no agency whatsoever, what great and enlightened way do YOU read into God handing down Moses on how to sell your daughter into slavery for possible sexual molestation???)

"I'd argue that while that's technically correct, nevertheless it IS still a case of someone having rights denied due to a religious bias, and I don't even mean a personal religious bias here"

Sure, maybe -- but again, THAT IS CONSTITUTIONAL. The law itself is not explicitly religious, so therefore it is constitutional. It does not matter if the law's proponents are almost all motivated by explicitly religious reasoning.

You say at the end that such things should not be "condoned." Again, this is vague, meaningless language. Does this mean you think it's unconstitutional? You're wrong.* Does it mean you don't like it? Then OK, but so what?

*Prop 9 may, of course, be finally declared unconstitutional, but it will not be on grounds of religion.

"I'm sorry...WHO conquered Africa, captured these slaves, and sold and bought them in the first place?

Those were...CHRISTIANS, by and large, right?

The same way Christians took over the Americas, and (certain Christians) raped, starved, slaughtered, and enslaved the natives there as well?"

WAIT! So you're saying.... early Americans were all Christians?

Would that include the founders?

*facepalm*

Even if I spotted you them, sill mostly Christian, I never denied the population wads mostly Christian...

I just said that in a legal sense there was no and should be no de facto religion...oy...

Yes yes. I'm just pointing out the duplicitous argument you're using. You basically get to call whoever you want Christian, and whoever you want not Christian, notwithstanding any evidence. Unsurprisingly, the results then tend to support your positions.

You also didn't address my response to your point about gay marriage, btw.

What point was that, I thought I responded/reconstructed my answer there...

"There is nothing unconstiutional about taxing churches or making sure they follow basic labor law."

I think that taxing charitable organizations is a bad idea, constitutional or not. Most of these are organizations that have a hard enough time coping as it is. Yes, there are rotten apples that take advantage of the laws governing charitable organizations, but some of these people run "charitable" organizations besides corrupt churches. And the individuals still get taxed on their income, anyway -- charitable-receiving is not tax exempt. If you work the register at Good Will or the Salvation Army, you still get taxed on your paycheck, as truly as you would at Walmart or Best Buy.

But as much as it sucks not to tax the evil "charitable" organizations, I'd rather they went un-taxed than that all charitable organizations (or even just churches, as you say) were taxed.

Basic labor laws... right there with you.

Plus One to Semck for <<
WAIT! So you're saying.... early Americans were all Christians?

Would that include the founders?>>

Minus One to Obi for false logic--AGAIN. Obi, I thought you were smarter than to get into an argument with Semck and Draugnar using such lame logic. Maybe it's whatever you're drinking--I don't know.

How DO you read:

Exodus 21:1-4 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Deuteronomy 15:12-18 "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
Exodus 21:7 "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."

I'm so glad you asked!
First of all, let's start with some historical and cultural context. Whenever we read ancient texts, or texts from different cultures, we need to remember that we are unlikely to understand them if we bring along all our own unexamined cultural and chronilogical baggage. We need to be open minded. We don't want to start off from a position of "chronoligical snobbery", as C.S. Lewis once put it - automatically assuming that people from a bygone era were stupid, morally decrepit, etc. If we don't prepare ourselves for some cultural/historical other-ness, we'll fly off the handle emotionally when we bump into the first strange or different thought and lose our ability to clearly understand the text.

Obviously the texts at hand seem regressive by our modern standards. But were they regressive for their time? Or were they actually progressive? How was slavery practiced in the cultures around the Hebrews? How had slavery been practiced among the Hebrews up to this time? Let's say we aren't experts in ancient history, but even so we can find examples of how the Egyptians practiced slavery against the Hebrews earlier on in the book of Exodus - that is, if we were reading these passages in context, which naturally we would, being students of literature who understand the importance of context. The picture of the Hebrews' servitude in Egypt is interesting. The Hebrews seem to be living in a ghetto of sorts in Goshen, and they seem to own their own livestock, so it's hard to say that they are living in chattel slavery, but it is abundantly clear that they are completely subject to the whim of a totalitarian regime that can and does require forced labor, taxes, and occasionally engages in ethnic cleansing; and the Hebrews have no recourse to law of any kind.

When we contrast the Hebrew situation in Egypt to the texts you have offered for our consideration, the differences are immediate and striking. The first is that, for the first time, slavery is limited by legislation. The slave no longer lives under the whim of a totalitarian monarch; he is protected by divine law.

Next - and this is extremely important because this is exactly the part that both you and the American slavery apologists have both badly missed - we must notice that these laws clearly forbid chattel slavery. The slave serves only six years and is set free in the seventh; and when he is set free he is provided with enough capital to begin life as a free person again. This form of slavery is much more closely related to the concept of benevolent indentured servitude than to the grotesque form of chattel slavery practiced in the colonies and US and the ancient world, and as such it was most likely a major progressive step.

Oh, but the fun doesn't stop here! We next have to ask, "Why were ancient Hebrews selling themselves into slavery to one another in the first place?" And the answer is that in ancient societies there were neither bankruptcy laws nor social services, so when someone was in debt so deeply that they could no longer make payments they were forced to sell themselves (or their children) to cover their debts. Without legal protection those debtors would become chattel, but the texts we are examining now provide several very important protections for the debtors. First, they are protected from chattel slavery. Second, their debts are cancelled. Third, they are given food and shelter and employment. And finally, at the end of their servitude they are given capital and their freedom. Yes, ancient bankruptcy led to a significant loss of personal freedom, and yes that appears quite regressive by modern standards. But on the balance, what we're looking at in its historical context is a combination of legal protection and social services provided for the bankrupt debtor.

To recap, these texts can not be used to justify chattel slavery as it was practiced either in the ancient world or in the American colonies/ USofA. To argue that they can is to ignore the obvious meaning of the text and agree with the faulty Biblical interpretation of the slavery apologists.

Oh, but there are other Bible verses about slavery! Yes there are, and I'd be happy to discuss those too. Some other time.

@ Obi

"Fixing the mess was great, a wonderful action by wonderful human beings.
But I still can only count it as Christians cleaning up the immoral mess they created themselves. "

Far from that, Jews and Christians were creating a new paradigm in which slavery became increasingly unacceptable. Slavery was a fact of life in the ancient world prior to Christianity and also prior to Judaism. The Old Testament recognizes slavery as a fact of life but places limits upon it. The same verses you cite place a limit to the terms of slavery for a Hebrew to no more than six years. Judaism at that point was putting limits upon an institution that later Christians would begin serious efforts to wipe out.
It was a laborious journey that took over a thousand years and it amounted to this. We didn’t like it when the Egyptians enslaved us and will never forget God rescuing us from slavery. Then it went to “We shouldn’t enslave other Hebrews indefinitely”. Later Paul (speaking to a Greco-Roman society in which slavery was an integral part) says to treat your Christian slave like a brother. Then St. Eloi, in the 7th Century, buys every slave he can find, in lots of 50 to 100, setting them free. The Council of Koblenz (922) stated that selling a Christian into slavery was equivalent to homicide. The Council of London (1102) states “Let no man [in England] enter into that nefarious trade by which men as sold as brute animals”. In less than two hundred years it goes from merely Christians to any men. By 1688, in an entirely new hemisphere and with a chance to set the new paradigm in which slavery was not to be allowed, Quakers stood up to their own brethren and said “This is wrong”. Of course there were Christians who disagreed, but over centuries the world went from Aristotle stating that slavery was a natural state and not a man-made convention to the abolition of slavery in nearly every country with a Christian heritage. Jews and later Christians were there every step of the way; love won out.
That did NOT happen because a few atheists showed up in the mid 1800’s and said “Gee guys you know this slavery thing stinks”. I’ll grant you that some people embraced abolition for secular reasons but many rejected it on secular monetary terms as well. You simply can’t show up in the late 1700’s and claim credit for all of the leg work from crossing the Red Sea up until your presence on the stage. You may be sick of this argument, but it is a rock-solid one. Christian people were fighting against slavery from their very beginnings and they were fighting against their brothers who were emerging from the classical pagan institution. Take a look at the ancient Greek dramas and epics; slavery was a fact of life for them and it was defended by some of the very philosophers that you laud and praise. (Aristotle for instance) http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/las_casas/Aristotle-slavery.html.